Looking for freeware to convert some mp3's to lower bitrate

[Dman877]

Got an iPod mini (4 gig) and over 20gb of music on my hard drive. I don't need all of it obviously but I've been fooling around and managed to squeeze about 7.5 gb at 160 - 256 kbps onto the iPod by converting it all to 96 kbps. I recently tested some stuff at 64 kbps and it sounded fine so I think I'm going to move all the tracks for my iPod to 64 kbps. This will have the added benefit of extending battery life. Currently I get about 18 - 20 hours out of a full charge, I'm hoping to get a solid 20+ with 64kbps tracks.

The program I'm using atm is freeripmp3 and it works alright for batch conversions but the lower the bitrate I try, the more likely the new files are to have artifacts. Is something that will happen regardless of the encoder I use or are some apps better then others? Recommendations?

TIA.

 

[Evander]

i use dbpoweramp for audio conversions, and for low bitrate I've found mp4 (with aac plus) to be the best, details are at my page:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/emazur/audio/audio.html

 

[Schadenfroh]

I use CDex with the LAME encoder to resample my MP3s or to rip them from CDs.

 

[Mojoed]

Sounds like MP3PRO would be the best option for you. (Assuming the iPod can play this format) Normally I don't recommend mp3pro, because it doesn't offer much benefit at high bit rates. The real benefit is smaller file sizes at low bit rates with better quality than mp3's encoded at the same bit rate. As far as mp3pro goes in regards to battery life, I don't know.

I think it's worth giving mp3pro a shot if you're satisfied with 64-96Kb/s.

 

[0roo0roo]

iew.... 96? thats too low. anything below 128 with mp3 is cr@p. if you are going to do that reencode to apples more efficienct aac or whatever codec. that can handle 96kbs half decently.

 

[Mojoed]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
iew.... 96? thats too low. anything below 128 with mp3 is cr@p. if you are going to do that reencode to apples more efficienct aac or whatever codec. that can handle 96kbs half decently.

^ Yea mp3pro also really excels at that bitrate as far as quality and file size.

 

[0roo0roo]

ipods play mp3 pro? no reason to use it anyways since aac is atleast as good if not better, and not an essentially dead format.

 

[Dman877]

Is the software for encoding aac free? Does iTunes do it?